STOEMS, HURRICANES, AND TYPHOONS. - 427 



an ellipse a square, an oblong, or any figure, be it never so ir- 

 ^y ' regular ? The trade-winds an- 



.. — swer, showing the equatorial 



— -— calm belt — an oblong — as their 



place of meeting. The}^ neither 

 revolve nor blow at right 

 angles, with the line of their 

 direction from the place of low 

 barometer; but they blow as 

 directly for it as the forces of 

 diurnal rotation will allow. But the cyclonologists, instead of 

 permitting the wind at the distance c" sometimes to blow to the 

 east, and at d to blow to the north, merely because there is a low 

 barometer east of c" and north of d, require it cdioai/s so to blow 

 because, by their theon/, there is a low barometer east of d and 

 south of c" ! Thus, to reach its theoretical place of destination, 

 the wind must blow in a direction at right angles to that destina- 

 tion ! It would require a rush of inconceivable rapidity so to 

 deflect currents of air while they are yet several hundred miles 

 from the centre of gyration. Moreover, the two cyclonologists, 

 c" and d, would differ \vith each other as to the centre of the 

 storm. Each at first would assume that the 'wind was blowing 

 about him in the direction of the curved arrow c" and d. As the 

 place of low barometer travels towards B, the hauling of the wind 

 would be according to the theory at c"', but against it at d. The 

 cyclonologist in d would place the centre of the storm to the 

 eastward of him, as in the direction of d, but the other would 

 place it to the southward of him, as in the direction c' . By the 

 rule, ship d would be led towards the real track of the storm, i. e., 

 into danger, and ship c'' away from it.* From all this it would 

 appear that the cyclone theory is defective in this : when the 

 wind hauls in the storm, the sailor who is contending with it, 

 lacks a rule by which he may know the influence which causes it 

 to haul. The gyrating disc of a cyclone can never, I apprehend, 

 exceed a few miles in diameter. On shore w-e seldom find it 

 exceeding in breadth as many rods, in most cases not of as many 

 fathoms, as its advocates give it miles at sea. I think the dust- 

 whirl in the street is a true type of the tornado (cyclone) at 

 sea. 



* Sec letter to Commodore Wullerstorf, p. 457, vol. ii., 8th ed., IMuury's 

 Sailing Directions. 



